Stove top scents!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Holiday season and have hopefully managed to get most of their shopping done. I still have a ton do buy and do but it will all get done sooner then later I hope :). I'm not sure what the appropriate name for this would be, so I'm just calling it Stove top scents. This scent will fill your entire home with the most beautiful scent just perfect for the Holidays. The best part is its extremely cheap to make and almost all the ingredients were already in my pantry! Who doesn't love stuff when its almost FREE?! Here are the ingredients I used for this stove top scent but you can honestly change it to how ever you want your home to smell.

•Apple Juice (optional, I used about 2 cups worth)
•Water, just enough to fill the pot about 3/4 of the way after adding the apple juice
•Orange Zest (as much as you can get off that sucker!)
•Orange slices (I only used half the orange)
•Apple slices (I only used am half again)
**Fresh Cranberries would be wonderful in this as well!**
•About 1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin spice.
•1 tablespoon vanilla extract
•1 tablespoon whole cloves

Place all your spices into a big pot on the stove and set the heat to high. Cook on high just until it starts to boil. Once it starts boiling, turn down to a low simmer and cook how ever long you want :) You want to make sure you keep your eye on the pot, if the water starts to get low you need to continue to add water, do not let all the water evaporate out. This pot of scents will last you about a week. YES! A whole WEEK! I haven't had it going a week, only one day but Ive done some research and every thing I have read said you can keep the mixture for a week and it will continue to smell amazing the whole week.

Remember, there are tons of options to this! Any spices you have that you think would create the scents you want your home filled with, add them! You could even probably add any scent oils if you have any of those. The options are endless! And you can use as much or as little as you want. Use less if you want a more subtle smell and use more if you want to make sure everyone smells it right when they first walk into your home. Either way you will be so happy you tried this! Happy Holidays Everyone!

Lauren Holmes

GIVEAWAY!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and all the food your tummies could handle! The Thanksgiving Holiday weekend is coming to an end and Christmas is on its way here! So, just in time for sending out those Holiday cards I have a giveaway for you. Actually, not me, but I'm providing you with the link to a GREAT giveaway that is sure to be something you all could use! One of my long time friends that I grew up with from grade school (We were girl scouts together too! "On my Honor!" hehehe) has her very own blog and its filled with lots of fun pictures, stories, and other fun stuff almost all about DISNEY! You can check her out at Domestically Hip. Could it be any better really?! Her photos are great and I just love learning so much about Disney and all the fun things to see and do for our up and coming trip in the spring by all the fun stuff she posts! This giveaway is for a code to redeem for FREE Holiday picture cards from Shutterfly and a FREE Calender! Yes, FREE! All you have to do to win is this:

1. Follow my Blog and Twitter :) <----This is not part of the contest, but any help I can get the better :)

2. Go to HERE to find out the rules of the contest.

Its that simple! Good Luck to all!! Hope everyone is able to recover from their food comas just in time to get back to normal on Monday!! Happy Holidays everyone!!

Organizing for the Holidays!

Hello Blogger World!! How have y'all been?! I have obviously been a lazy bum, and not just in blogging but also in everything I had planned for this Monday. I woke up this morning so refreshed and motivated to get so many things done today and I have yet to fully mark anything off the good old "to-do" list. Last week my great friend Nicki and I attended our very first Kick Boxing class. We loved it so much and were going to attend it again this morning. Her poor Grandfather has been very sick for quite sometime and recently had surgery so she has been helping a lot with her Grandmother to take care of him. I feel so sad for her family and all they are going through and know how their hearts must be breaking to watch someone they love be this ill. So, understandably so, she was unable to attend with me this morning in helping take care of him over the night last night. So, instead of just going to the class anyways....I decided a trip to the McDonald's drive through made much more perfect sense....right?! Ofcourse it does! Its Monday after all, which normally in our house don't start of to well.

Most of my morning was spent catching up on morning TV and enjoying the best tasting biscuit Ive had....well, at least since the last one I had just a few days ago. Hey, I'm a SAHM and a full time student and I work hard to keep things rollin in this house.....don't judge me! ;)

Anyways, I have been preparing our house most of the weekend for the up and coming holidays and thought I would share some of the things I do around our house to get our home, minds, budgets, and even bodies in order so that we aren't all running around the house like crazy when Thanksgiving and Christmas are here. Here are my MUST do's that seem to take a little stress off my back around the holidays and hopefully they can bring some sanity to your home as well :).

1. The VERY first thing I do, around the week or so before Thanksgiving, is to give my house a complete scrub down. We are talking every nook and cranny here people. Trust me, you will be glad you did this. With all the evens and festivities that go on around the holidays, many late nights out shopping, family and friends who visit, holiday parties, etc... there isn't much time (at least not time you want to spend) to spend cleaning your home inside and out. If you take this time to deep clean your home now, maybe even get rid of some clutter, then really the only type of cleaning you have to worry about until the New Year is just light cleaning and picking up.

2. Update your Household manual, if you have one. I usually only worry about "updating" my Christmas section since this is the main area of focus for this time of year. Here is a great website for Household Manual Printables and the ones you should really get for the holidays are here. There are a TON of Christmas stuff that you never would have thought that could help you so much, but they have me for the last couple of years! Plus, if your anything like me, then you start purchasing Christmas gifts around July/August and then start to forget what you have as they start piling up in the closet. This way, you can keep things organized, know who you purchased for and how much you've spent and so on.

3. Schedule your Christmas family portrait NOW! In our house, Daddy Holmes isnt to fond of having his picutre taken, so its a little easier for us to plan pretty much just around Gracie. She is usually the focus of our Christmas Card theme and usually I just set up a cute display/back drop and then snap some shots myself. But, if you like to feature your entire family in the photo, then NOW is the time to set those things up. Depending on who you want in the photograph and who you want to take the pictures will all be important factors in trying to decide when you need to have this done. Plus, if you have them done now you wont have a bunch of people outside in the freezing cold trying to smile for a photo.

4. Take some time for yourself. The craziness of the Holidays tend to leave a little less time for self improvement then what we would all like. We spend so much time worrying and helping others that we forget its important to thing about ourselves as well. Make a few extra trips to the gym. Force your self to go when you would otherwise be more likely to go through the McDonald's drive through instead of just going to that Kickboxing class.....take this example from myself lol. Not that it will make any difference whether you focus on losing any weight or what ever your normal fitness goals are, but it will really help you to keep your metabolism going and maybe help burn those calories from the extra cookie or ten you decide to eat during holiday festivities ;). Did I say ten....is that just me who eats like a cow during the holidays?! I digress....

On a side note, working out always gives us energy and I always feel happier when I am working out alot. That's something we all could use a little extra of during all the hustle and bustle of the holidays. In our family, I am the one who cooks the big turkey dinners, so I need all the energy and happiness I can get to stay awake to cook and keep from killing other family members. Did I just say that out loud?! ;)

5. Write your holiday dinner lists and budget now. There are TONS of couponing deals to be had and if you start now its not to late to snag some free or really cheap stuff for your holiday dinners! I think the lowest price so far I have seen for Turkey's was at Walmart for $.89/lb. That's a great deal, cheaper then I paid at $.99/lb just last week. If you are like me and you started stockpiling stuff for the holiday meals about a month ago then you should have some great baking items in your pantry. Remember they start putting out Holiday baking items and sales for these items with corresponding coupons start coming out in the beginning of October. You just gotta PLAN AHEAD! You will be happy you did!

6. Lights! If you put outside Christmas lights on your house now is a great time to do that as well. Since the whether is much warmer now then it will be in only a few weeks you will save your self alot of holiday turmoil. Its only a couple weeks early if you do it now so it wont look tacky and you don't have to worry about turning them on until Dec.1st or if your an early bird, Black Friday. You will be so happy you did it early in the warmer weather, trust me!

7. Start planning your Black Friday deals NOW! There are many sites that have listed the Black Friday adds and most stores, Target, Walmart, Best Buy etc. have listed them on their sites so you can start getting your game plan for your Black Friday shopping now instead of waiting for the paper to come out. My coupon friends and I are all teaming up to go shopping together and have been working hard to plan our shopping trip for the last couple of weeks now. We also attended a Black Friday workshop and learned many great tricks to the Black Friday shopping. Point is, you can start planning now and be way ahead of the game! It will pay off to be ahead of the game.

8. Go through your children's toys. This sort of goes along with getting your house deep cleaned, but honestly, its such a dreaded thing in my house that it deserves its own category. Every year, whether its Birthday or Holiday, our daughter Gracie gets WAAAAAAYYYY to many toys. I always tell everyone to get her anything but toys and yet she seems to get twice as much as she did the year before. We have a decent sized home, but if I kept everything she got each year we would be living out in the garage because her toys would have consumed our entire living area. I know you know what I'm talking about. I think its a rule that grandparents must buy out Toys-R-Us and Walmarts toy department every year, its crazy. So, in order to have an organized place for the new toys to have a home, you need to get rid of some old. Now, as much as I LOVE getting rid of things, I just cant bring myself to do this part behind Gracie's back. Yes, she is young enough that I could just toss her stuff and she would never know the difference, but there are a couple reasons why I think its important to have her involved. One reason being that she has so much stuff that she even forgets what she has. Its important to remind her about the toys she has and encourages her to want to play with them again when they have been up high on the shelf for so long, out of sight out of mind. Also, its important that she helps in deciding what to keep and what to toss/donate. It lets her know that its okay to get rid of toys and donate them to the less fortunate and it feels like its more her choice to get rid of them then it is of "mommy is taking them away" sort of thing. Plus, telling her that new ones will be coming sorta helps the process move a little quicker. I don't like to get rid of ALL the toys, however. Some of her toys, the ones she still likes but still doesn't play with as often, usually make it to her Nini's house or to her Aunt's house. That way she has "newer" updated toys to play with when she visits family for the night. It makes her happy to see toys she is familiar with and they don't just go completely waisted.

9. Take the time to google Holiday events going on in your area. There are all kinds of fun things to do starting on Nov.25th going through to New Years. Everything from ice skating, light displays, church events, snow tubing, Christmas plays and concerts, you name it. If you take the time to find out whats going on now, you can work those things into your budget and schedule now instead of learning last minute about the fun things you might not get to otherwise do because of funds or time. Some of these things also require you purchase tickets in advance so now is the time to start thinking about what things you want to do with your family in the month of December.

10. For something fun, check out this website Elfyourself, its a fun way to get you in the spirit, make you laugh, and you can share it with family and friends. Just remember your free viewing of your videos that you make expire around Christmas day, if I remember correctly. Its so funny and will make you crack up time and time again!!

11. Now that your house is in order, your Christmas list is made and you wait for the time to decorate your home with your family, take this time to relax, pop on a Christmas classic movie, and enjoy some hot chocolate. I cant believe that the Holidays are here already but I'm so happy that Ive learned this things over the years to help me plan a little early so that I will be able to truly enjoy spending more time with my family and friends instead of worrying about what needs to be done.

I hope you find these tipshese tips bring you a little peace over the next couple of weeks. Only 40 days 9 hours until Christmas!! What ways do you prepare for the holidays??! Id love to hear any ideas that you find important to getting things ready for the busiest time of the year!

I think I need rehab...

From Pinterest that is! If you don't know what Pinterest is then DONT ASK! You will be forever changed, in a good/bad kinda way. It has taken over me. I dream about it, I log into the website like a million times a day just to see what all the neat things my friends and other's have posted. And as excited as I am that I found it, I'm also dreading it lol because I have become craft obsessed more then I ever was before. Now I have thoughts 24/7 of how I can turn an ugly lamp shade into something beautiful and pretty to look at. Or how I can repaint an old picture frame into a "make-up magnet board"....which, I actually made just last week.

Since there are just so many cool ideas on the site, I have been inspired to make or craft as many of the gifts on my Christmas list for others as I can. So far, the two projects I have completed have cost me under $20 each!! Yikes!! That's insane!! And as cliche as it sounds, with today's economy that is HUGE for me!

I thought I would share with you one of the gifts I made for my Aunt Laura that I am sooooo in love with! And if my last initial happened to be an "R" I just might have a hard time letting go of this, but its an H so I couldn't get away with that lol. Here's what I made and the steps I took to make a frame go from ugly to wonderful!

{Here is my inspiration for this project. I love the blue with the burlap contrast and just thought this is the perfect easy craft! I wanted to make it a little more my own, so here is what came of the inspiration plus a little of my own tweaking :)  }

I found this on Pinterest but the website its originally from is positivelysplendid.com.

First I found an ugly frame at a thrift store that was normally priced $3 but it was on sale this particular day for half off, so $1.50 :)

Next, I painted the inside of the frame just to cover up the ugly red flowers. I did paint two coats and it didn't completely cover them up, but that's okay because will be covering it up with burlap :)

Then, I printed of a letter "R" in the size that would best fit the inside of the frame (I had to use size 400 which sounds crazy but that's the size I needed). I also cut a piece of burlap to fit the inside of the frame. Then, I just traced the "R" with a sharpie. Much easier then to try and paint it and it still looks great!



Then, I painted the frame a pretty blue and glued the burlap piece inside the frame.

Next, to give the frame a more rustic look I painted some black over the blue. In order to get this look I took a medium sized bulky paint brush, dabbed it in paint, and then on a dry area of paper I dabbed most of the black OFF the brush, that way there would be very little black actually going on the frame and I could control the amount of black I wanted little by little.

For the flower detail I just folded up circles of white felt. I folded small circles into half circles and then in half again and then just stacked them in alternating directions to give this really cute flower. I added a red button for the center of the flower, I loved the contrast of the red against the blue in the inspiration picture so I just thought this was the perfect touch! I also just cut out two pieces of the burlap to make the leaves, no tracing, just did a rough cut.

Once it was all dry I added a burlap bow for a hanger. (I have burlap coming out of the wazoo from our wedding this past summer).

Here is my finished product!!

Isn't it precious!! I will be doing this again very soon, it only took me a couple of hours to make and was soooo easy! I bought two of the ugly frames so I still have another frame waiting for me to beautify! And total cost for this was $1.50! Yes, you read right, one dollar and fifty cents!! I had everything to make this not including the frame so the only cost I was out was the frame itself. Thank god for thrift stores right?!

I cant wait to show you the make-up magnet board I made for my cousin! Stay tuned for the tutorial!! Happy Crafting!

A moment of realization.

The past couple weeks, really months, have truly given me alot of time to think about many things in my life and the direction that our paths have led us. When I say "us" I mean myself, ofcorse, and my family. Its so funny how when you vision your future, what it will look like and who will be in it you don't always foresee what will actually take place and who will truly be the ones to impact and influence your life. Almost exactly 2 years ago our family, my husband (then fiance) and our daughter moved to a new town. The move was inspired by the fact that I was no longer employed to be able to stay home and take care of our daughter and he was driving 45 minutes to work and back every day. And with the hours he was pulling with many 16-18 hour days at work as well as the price of gas sky rocketing, moving was what made perfect sense. I had so many mixed emotions about how this would effect our lives. Where were we actually going to be living? Who would be our neighbors? Would I like it there? I was ready for a change that is for sure! I think we all sometimes get in a rut in our lives and sometimes we feel a fresh start in a new place is just the thing to get us out of it. I was not so certain about how I was going to feel about being 45 min. away from family and friends, but I did know that I wanted more time with my husband and to maybe start saving back a little bit of money for our future instead of waisting it on gallons and gallons of high priced fuel. At the time we were living in a tiny two bedroom duplex in the middle of town in a cramped neighborhood filled with nothing but teens and college students. It wasn't the ideal neighborhood for a young family starting out. It wasn't a "bad" neighborhood, you just didn't see too many families and certainly not very many, if any, kids for my daughter to someday "befriend". We were able to find a home about 15 mins out from my husbands work located in a very small (were talking the kind with one stop sign and a gas station) town. It was a two bedroom home, which was about twice the size of the duplex that sat on 5 acres of land. At the time all I could think about was "YAY! My daughter can run and play and run and play and run some more!!" I was so excited that we could have some privacy and we could have all the room to play outside in actual grass! We had only about 10 feet of grass at the duplex. So, we turned in our notice at the duplex, packed up a UHaul, packed up about 4 cars and a trailer and moved out of town! Little did I know how much my life would shift and how different things would be for me....

For about the first year or so I was pretty...I guess bored would be the best way to describe it. I enjoyed being with my daughter every day, don't get me wrong! I was and am still VERY blessed that I am able to spend so much time with her and be there for her every day. Its a blessing that I would not change for the world and I'm fully aware of how lucky in a way that I am and don't take it for granted one single bit. But, we were so used to seeing friends and family on a regular basis, having many play dates with other friends of mine and their kids that when we moved to the "new" home and weren't able to just run down the street to visit "so and so" that it became very boring in a sense. Gracie and I started to become very cranky all the time. We started falling into another rut and just began to see no end in site. I didn't know any one in our area and honestly I started feeling a little depressed. I had nothing that was mine in a sense. No outlet for my day to day stress. Nothing for me to do, no "me" time. Not to mention, it wasn't long after we moved in that we found out we had a HORRIBLE land lord who pretty much neglects to fix anything in the home until it is completely falling apart, literally, and takes months before he gets around to doing anything about them when he actually does fix them. He never returns phone calls, doesn't fix the issues correctly, and has even gone months without cashing the rent checks we have mailed him. We live in a nice home, but in the manor to which he takes care of the home, it will not last before the home will need major repairs. With our plans to buy a home back in our hometown I have found myself praying and wishing we would be back there sooner than later. I have found myself saying "I hate this place" and "I just wish we could get out of here!" Little did I know that my heart would have planted itself and grown roots in places I could have never seen coming!

Soon, I looked into going back to school and found that because I was a "single mom" at the time I was able to go to school and have it paid for! YAY! This gave me something to do, something that would help better myself and continue plans I had made many years ago before I became a mommy. I started to feel like I was investing in myself again :).

I think the biggest challenge that I had to face since moving here was to put myself out there. I had been in the same town, had remotely the same friends, hung around the same people since high school so "making friends" just wasn't something I ever thought about or even really had to try to do. I wasn't a majorly popular person, but we just knew so many people that there was always someone to hang around, always something going on. Granted, when we had our daughter the friends sorta limited to those that also had children and limited our outings to events that allowed me or my husband to bring a child. But once we moved here, I seemed to be to new kid in town and so I had to some how find a way to meet new people. Well, that soon became one of the best things ever! I was so lucky that my husband had already made so many great friends at work. He had established friendships with a great group of men from his work that were also apart of the CERT team and considered them family long before I had truly gotten to know them. Soon we started getting invited to friend gatherings, birthday parties, night on the towns, etc... I started to pay attention to these already friends of Cat's and noticed that these great group of guys also had wonderful wives and great kids and they were all interested in the same types of things that I was into. Some had kids around the same age as Gracie, while some had some a little older, but still young enough to be able to play with our daughter. It wasn't long before the number of events/get together that we were going to with this group of people became more frequent and I really started getting to know these women. We started to become friends on facebook and really becoming great friends in person. We started having play dates together and it just grew from there.

Now let me just say for the record. I still completely ADORE my friends from back home. I still miss them VERY much and I cherish the time that I do get to see them. I wish it were more often and I hate that I am missing out on so much of their lives. Laci, a good friend and also my hair dresser, is one that I love catching up with and gossiping about fun and exciting things going on around us and she just makes me laugh and I love being around her. Amy, a great great GREAT friend of mine! We worked together and soon realised we actually graduated together lol and now she has two beautiful children (one of which I have yet to even meet :( ....) is someone that I love getting together with when ever I can. She is such a fun girl and I always have a crazy and exciting time when I hang out with her. She makes me feel young again and just knows how to have a fun time! Many others from my home town that I could go on and on about that I miss every day! I don't want it to go unsaid how much I miss and love you :)

But when you move away and are in a new place with no one around to talk to and no one to hang out with, you gotta do something right?! lol. You cant just sit around and mope about how boring life has become. You cant sit and think that now because you are a mommy that your life is over and you cant have some fun too! No, you have to work with what ya got! You have to see the new changes in your life as a challenge and face them and know that you can be everything you were before mommy days, just find a way to do it AND enjoy your little ones at the same time :) You have to put yourself out there and meet new people. I have to say that I couldn't be more blessed with some of the new friends I have made over the last two years since we moved here. Its so funny how it all turned out but in so many ways I'm so grateful and thankful for them everyday! Both the old and new friends ;)

After putting myself out there, overcoming the fear of meeting new people I am one happy momma :) Today, I am a member of the YMCA that I enjoy going to with my dear friend Nicki! I love going to Zumba classes and working out with her. We also enjoy taking our kiddoes every now and then to go swimming at their awesome indoor pool! I also enjoy going on play dates with her to Micky D's when we get the chance. She is my one friend that is also a stay at home mom/student so we are able to make play date trips out during the week. And one of my most favorite things to do is Coupon Nights! Its a night were myself and the girls, some of which are wives of other officers that my husband works with and great friends of mine, and a few are just some great friends. We all get together about once every 2-3 weeks and clip coupons, trade deals, gossip, eat food, gossip, eat some more food... ;). Its a GREAT time and I get excited for it every time its coming up. I love getting together with those girls and just catching up on whats going on in their lives. They are all great women who are strong and inspiring and I honestly learn so much from them when I am around them. They are women that I look up to and truly feel blessed that I can call them my friends!

I guess the whole point of this is that, even though I still cannot wait for the day that we can buy a home, one that is sentimental to us as a family, and one that will put us near family and our old friends again. I could have never imagined that I may have started to actually make friendships and relationships with people here that will just tear me up inside to leave behind. These women all bring many different things to my life that have all impacted me in great ways and even in just two years have changed me as a person, as a mom, and as a friend. They have given me more then they will ever know. They have been there for me, laughed with me, some even danced with me lol. They have taught me things about myself that I never knew and for that I am grateful. And even though those plans of purchasing a home and leaving this town are so far no where in sight as of yet, I still think about it frequently, about the day I actually move away. And as silly as it sounds, its only 45 minutes away. Its not like I'm leaving and going so far away I will never see them again. And our husbands will still work together and they will still be in our lives. But I wont be close enough for play dates :(, and workout dates, and coupon nights.... It will truly leave an empty spot inside my heart. They will never know how much it will hurt. So I will enjoy the time I have with them now even more and more then I did before. I will listen closer, and laugh harder. I will be more of a friend then I was before and hopefully I can leave them with the same lasting impression that they have left upon me. So to those of you, and you know who you are, I love you and am blessed to know you!

XOXOXO and many blessings,
                                Lauren Holmes

She Did It! She Did It! YAY!!

We officially did it! Gracie has now ventured into the world of wearing big girl panties, at least 90% of the time! Yes, I said it! She is now potty trained!!! YAY!! I'm so excited! Can you since my excitement in the least bit?! Did you just feel the earth shake from all the jumping I'm doing for this new accomplishment in our household??!? If your a parent yourself and you have tackled potty training then you can completely understand what that excitement feels like. I cant even begin to tell you how happy I am that she decided she was ready for this, and all before school starts! Couldn't be better timing :) We have dabbled in trying to master the potty situation for about 6-8 months. But we never got farther then just sitting on the potty and playing, she just wasn't ready. We would sit on the potty only before bath time, because that's the only time I could get her to sit there long enough. 9 out of 10 times she wouldn't pee, and if she did pee, I would just figure it was luck. But last Tuesday when she came to me wanting to sit on the potty in the beginning of our day, I was SHOCKED! But, I let her try, thinking it was more of a game to her then anything else. To my surprise, she was serious. She went right at that moment in the potty and continued to go in the potty the rest of the day. She would tell me about 80% of the time that she needed to go. After a few days of successfully still using the potty every time she needed to go, the "Potty Fairy" made a visit to our house (potty fairy, aka her grandmother lol). The Potty Fairy brought Gracie a new princess potty (as seen in the picture above), a new matching princess stool that would be easier for her to move around, and new princess panties. This was just the thing to keep Gracie on track! She was so excited about the new potty supplies that it encouraged her to want to keep going in the potty! If she peed/pooped in the potty I would let her pick out a piece of candy and found some old stickers and some construction paper and let her put a sticker on her "potty chart" every time she went. She LOVED all this excitement about potty training and now over a week later she is still using the potty! We use Pull-Up's at night time only, for obvious reasons. We have had a couple "accidents" during this first week of training, but they have all been poop related. I think, at least I'm guessing, that the poop "feeling" might be a little bit harder to detect for the little ones, and honestly its only been a couple times that we have had that "accident" so I'm not complaining. Even going on vacation last week she was able to still stay focused enough to still go when she needed to "go". So I'm curious, how did the rest of you tackle potty training? Did you have any crazy things that worked to get them interested and did your kids just decide on their own they were ready?! What were your results and how did you feel when they finally mastered the obstacle's?!

Whats new with you?!

Hello fellow friends and blog world! I haven't posted in awhile, and thought I would stop in and say good morning! Alot has been going on the the Holmes household, enough to make our heads spin! We've had some fun moments and then they all ended with an incident with my car that has now left me without a vehicle. But we wont talk about that lol. I thought I would update everyone on what we have been up to this summer. We have had a pretty good summer so far and honestly, I'm very sad that its coming to a quick end. Gracie and I both start school again next month as well as we will celebrate her 3rd Birthday!! I cant believe my baby is growing up! Its honestly like a sick joke to a parent to watch your babies grow up and need you less and less. Anyways, back to our summer!

This summer we have spent ALOT of our days at the splash pad with our great friends the Erskine's! You can check out Nicki's blog here.



Gracie playing with the water guns

This is the "magic sensor" that turns the water back on once its turned off. :)

   At the beginning of the summer some of my family, Gracie and I went camping along the river! We had a great time, however our camp site location was horrible! The site was great, we LOVED the location, except we had HORRIBLE neighbors who partied all through the night. The crazy thing about that was that they literally never went to sleep the entire 2.5 days we were there! They had the worlds largest bon fire going, biggest one I had ever seen, and drank endless amounts of beer and insisted on yelling profanities the whole weekend. I was honestly shocked that people could act like that. I understand that when people have to much to drink the say and do things they wouldn't normally do. And then you wake up the next morning with a hang over and cant imagine drinking that much again for awhile and act "normal" again. Well, not these people. These were grown adults, with small children with them as well. We complained the first night, waiting until around 10 or 11 to even say anything, and they took that as a personal insult and continued to do what ever they could to make our trip uncomfortable. After the first night when we complained, they continued to stay up all night, party as loud as they could and then at 8am the next morning started banging on pots and pans as hard as they could and yelling "Its time to wake up! Its 8am!!" I'm telling you these people were crazy! Not to mention, the camp resort we stayed at had two main camp areas. One was a camp area mainly for those that want to stay up later and party and have a good time. The second camp area, where we were staying, was designated for families, those that want a low key camping weekend. I don't understand why these men and woman were acting that badly, but all I can say is that I think more than just alcohol had something to do with it. No normal human being acts like that, even if they were irritated that we complained and rained on there parade! Even the last morning their dog came over to our camp site and proceeded to relieve himself ON OUR camp site. We shooed the dog away and they came over towards us puffing their chests telling us "He's just taking a p**s". Anyways, we were lucky that during the day we were having so much fun on the river that we didn't even bother to think about the crazy group most of the time we were there. We still cant wait for our trip next year and just hope to not have scary crazy neighbors!!



My cousin, her friend, and Gracie catching fire flies :)



My mom and sister hangin out!



My crazy cousin on our horse back ride. She's such a goof ball!

Everyone lined up and about to head out on the trail :)

Trying to get a picture of me and Gracie on our horse. No horse in the picture but you get the idea :)

 After we have packed up the campsite and head home, we stop at the Pizza Hut just on our way out of town. Its our last meal of the trip and our tradition to do every year. We always sit in the large back room that always seems to have no one else back there and we just have a fun crazy time. There are these candy and game machines back there and one of them has nothing but face facial hair "stickers" and some even have fake moles!! Its so funny, and the girls spend crazy amounts of money ever year putting money into the machine to see what facial hair or mole they will be so lucky to get. We get some great pictures and it really is alot of fun!

My crazy cousin and her best friend with their lovely mustaches lol

My other crazy cousin with her beard lol.

One afternoon we decided to take the kids to see the new movie Cars 2.



This was the best picture I could get since it was dark and I couldn't see what was going on lol

 Then, just last week a good friend of mine and I took our kids who are just a few days apart in age to the Zoo. We had alot of fun, even though the temps got over 105 degrees that day lol.

We started the morning off by catching a Sea Lion show.



This is Gracie and Little Z man, he's such a cute little guy! I love this picture, such an honest feeling between a boy and a girl lol. They really do like each other, just not at this moment I guess lol.





It was so neat to be front row! The Sea Lion demonstration was right in front of us. I sure enjoyed it but Gracie wanted nothing to do with it being so close!



Then we took the little ones on a carousel ride. They had alot of fun!



Of course, we couldn't leave the Zoo without making a trip to see the new baby Elephant. She is only a few months old and just so cute!! She squeaks and is a very playful "little" thing, comparatively...lol

 Overall, this has been a great summer! I'm having so much fun with Gracie. Its so sad that she is getting older and growing up, but at the same time its so fun that she is able to do more things and last longer in the day without naps. We have so much fun together, I just wish Daddy was able to join us more often :( But he is such a good daddy who works so hard to provide for Gracie and I. We sure do love him :) However, this weekend he is taking some time off of work and we are going to spend the weekend in TX visiting my Aunt and picking up my sister to bring her back to the good ole state of OK for school. It should be a great weekend!!

I hope all of you are having a wonderful summer as well, despite the heat! I don't normally say this but I'm honestly ready for fall to get here, if nothing more then for some temperature relief!

Count Down to Disney!

So about a month ago or so my Mother and I started planning our summer trip to Disney World in May of 2012. I CANNOT begin to tell you how excited I am about this trip. So far, we are planning on me, Hubby Holmes, Gracie, my Mother, my sister, my Mother's boyfriend, and my Great Aunt will all be going. I'm so excited about going that it has consumed my (almost) every thought!! I feel like I'm 9 again when I went for the first time and just thinking about seeing Cinderella's Castle and seeing Mickey in person just makes me want to giggle like a little girl lol. The first time my family went to Disney was back in 1993. My Aunt was living in Florida at the time and married her then husband in June of 93. They wed on June 13th I believe (I may have the date off by a day or two...) and my birthday is on the 18th of June. Just a day or two after the wedding, we packed up and drove just a short drive (Me, my Mother, my Sister, and my Mimi) to Walt Disney World. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, which at the time I didn't realise how cool that hotel really was until now looking at the hotel in all of our planning. I just remember how magical and grand everything was. It literally felt like being inside of one of the magical Disney movies that we all love and enjoy, as corny as that may sound. It truly is a kids dream come true to be able to walk through Cinderellas Castle and to eat lunch with Winnie the Pooh or Goofy and Pluto!

I was so lucky to be asked to join my Aunt Laura to go again in the summer of 2004. My younger cousin was having a cheer competition and I got to go!! I was so excited to see how everything had changed and what was still the same! Much of it was just as I had remembered, but there was so much more to see and do! I mean, it was Disney after all and 15 years had passed. Some things were bound to be new! It was alot of fun and I will be forever grateful to have been able to join them!

So, next summer Gracie will turn 4 in August of 2012. We are planning now that way we can make sure to have plenty of time to figure out all the details and plan a perfect trip! Hubby Holmes and I wanted to wait until Gracie was at least 5 before thinking about having another child. So, what better way to spend a special trip with Gracie as the last time she will be the only child (or should I say Princess, that's more fitting I think) and to give her the absolute royal treatment then to take her to none other than the most magical place on Earth. Also, my sister was about 4, I think about to turn 5, when we went as kids. But for some reason, she has a hard time remembering much from her childhood. Literally, she cant remember hardly anything that happened to us as kids, all the great memories we had growing up are to her, like listening to someone esle tell stories about themselves...she doesnt actualy remember being apart of them when in fact, she was right there through it all. So, this trip is serving double duty and giving her a little bit of her childhood back. Hoping to rekindle some of those great memories we had when we first went together as well as to give her many many more! I know she will love it and I cant wait for her to go...again lol!

My original plan when my mother and I started planning this trip was to surprise Gracie and not tell her we are going until the day of. I cant begin to tell you how hard I cried the ugly cry watching videos of parents who have done the same thing with their kids. NO JOKE! Go to YouTube right now! (Okay, maybe after you read this..) and type in Disney surprise vacations and just watch some of the videos of the kids finding out that they are leaving for Disney only moments after they open the box/card/etc.. telling them that their bags are packed and everything is ready to go! If you even have a little spark left inside of you from your child hood then you just cant help but shed a happy tear of joy watching the light in their eyes and the glow on their cute little faces. They are just soooo happy! Its easily compared to winning the lotto for an adult for these kids. Some of them cry and some of them are just jumping for genuine joy. Its amazing!! Okay, so back what I was talking about. My original plan was to do this very thing with Gracie. Now, I realize that she will only be almost 4, so it may not mean "as" much to her as it would if she were a little bit older, like 7 or 8. But, we have talked about Disney World and explained to her that Cinderella and Bell and Ariel all live at Disney. She is a HUGE Disney Princess fan so this made her pretty excited just to know where they live. I ordered that Free Disney Planning DVD and sat down and watched it with her just to kind of see what she would say or do. I never came right out and said "This is were we are going....were going to Disney world". Or at least I thought I hadn't said that in front of her....Nope! I was wrong. Apparently, my own excitement for Disney took over and I must have been talking about it so much in front or around her and not even paying attention, that she now thinks (more like knows..) that were going to Disney. Every time she watches a Disney movie and the part before the credits where the castle comes up and Tinkerbell flies over the castle...she yells as loud as she can...."That's Disney World!! Cinderellas Castle!! I'm going there!!" So, needless to say, my plan is to keep my mouth SHUT! about anything Disney in front of her and hope that she kind of forgets or doesn't think about it over this next year. I really want to surprise her with this trip and just want it to work out perfectly! Right now we are only 316 days away from our trip! That seems like forever, but really its only a little over 10 months and will be there before we know it! I cant wait to update with more details on where we will be staying and some of the fun and exciting things we will be seeing and doing!

Wedding Recap #3 - Getting Ready!

Before I recap the getting ready part of our wedding day, I want to say a HUGE thank you to my friend and hairstylist Laci. You have NO idea how much you calmed me down that day and how much you made me feel so much better and more relaxed. And for that, I love you! lol

Laci was seriously, like others were too, a huge help to me! She was so helpful at the rehearsal doing what ever little tasks we needed help with. My getting ready started pretty quickly right after the rehearsal. All of my bridesmaids had their hair appointments at the salon at the same time and my mom and I got our hair done back at the hotel so that it would be a little less chaotic. I could not believe it, but Gracie ended up passing out, on her own, with no coaxing involved lol, and took a nap for over 2 hours!




I cant tell you how happy I was that she took a good nap!

Laci was so sweet to order us some margaritas! We were able to have a a couple hours just hanging out while she did my hair. It was so fun getting a chance to hang out with her, we don't get very many moments to hang out. Even if she was doing my hair at the same time lol.

The bridesmaids hair ended up taking a little bit longer then we had expected. Not only was it our wedding day, but it was also the University's graduation day so all the salons were jam packed with people getting ready for graduation that day. I had hoped we would all be done getting ready in time to get to the train station early to get as many photos done as possible. That didn't quite work out, which wasn't anyone fault, there just wasn't enough time. I'm so grateful for the photos we did get however. Our photographer, Shana Mills Photography, did a FABULOUS job! She got so many great photos of Hubby Holmes and his groomsmen. Even though we didn't have time to get any bridesmaid shots, she was still able to get so many great photos of the getting ready process. Here are my favorite getting ready shots and some of my favorite shots of the groomsmen she was able to get before the wedding :)

Cant live without my phone! ;)



My beautiful cousin





"Waitin on Woman" ;)





I sure love Hubby Holmes :)





I love this one of Hubby Holmes handcuffed to the light pole lol

I could seriously post like 50 more but then that would just be silly. The overall getting ready for our wedding day was so chaotic and just an unorganised mess! I'm just glad that at least the pictures (most of them anyways lol) depict something different. I'm glad they captured the joy that we truly felt in our hearts that day! I learned very quickly that day that I will never (like there will be another chance anyways, I'm going to be with Hubby Holmes forever, Duh! lol) but I will NEVER do that again lol. I wish I would have paid someone to do EVERYTHING! All the set up, all the transporting of stuff from here to there, all the little details, everything. **EDIT!**(I cant say thank you enough to Fancy Cakes Etc. for all that they did! I cant let it go without acknowledging the work that they did! They truly did do so much that day, that without them I would have just been one hot mess and there just may not have been a wedding lol. They did so many things, i.e. the cake, the caterring, helped find music, the set up and take down, etc...that It would take me all day to list what all they did. Thank you Debra, Tegan, and all the Fancy Cakes Etc. crew!!) My day was way to consumed with worrying about 50 million little things to get done that I should have just been able to enjoy it for what it was. All I can say, is that the second my veil was placed over my face and I walked down that aisle towards my best friend, all of the stress of wedding planning and preparing for everything literally lifted off of my back and everything in the world was just as it should be! But that's another recap ;).....

Coupons, Coupons, Coupons!!

So as you know I LOVE using coupons! I don't know what I love more?! Being able to purchase certain foods for my family that I otherwise couldn't afford, or watching the price at the cash register drop dramatically after I hand over my coupons. I follow many sites to get all the best deals, I buy at least 3 news papers every week and keep up with my friends about where they are finding great deals. I love our coupon nights that we just started a couple weeks ago and cant wait for the next one coming up soon!

Today I scored some GREAT deals and thought I would share them with you! I went to three stores, Walmart, CVS, and Homeland. Here's what all I got today:

The first store I went to was Homeland. Here are the deals I got:

• 3 boxes of Duncan Hines Premium cake mix. These were on sale for $.99 each. I had a coupon for Buy 2 get 1 free. Making these $.66 a box.
• Ivory Soap bars were on sale for $1.99. I had a coupon for $1 off which doubled making the soap completely FREE!
• Bounty Napkins were on sale for $1.29. I had a $1 off coupon which doubled up to the price of the item making them FREE!
• Bordon Singles Cheese were on sale for $1.99. I had a $1 off coupon that doubled making them FREE!!
• Mt. Olives relish was on sale for $1.29. I had a $.50 coupon that doubled making me pay only $.29!
• A-1 Marinade was on sale for $2. I had a $1 off coupon that doubled making it FREE!
• Glad freezer storage bags were on sale 2 for $3. I had $1 off coupon that doubled making them only $.50 each! (YAY for cheap storage bags! We use a ton of these a month!)
• Sargento Cheese slices were on sale for $2.50. I had a $.75 off coupon that doubled making these only $1.
• Land-O-Frost deli meat. On sale for $3.99. I had a $.50 coupon that doubled making this $2.99, that's the best price so far Ive ever paid for this.
• Items I did NOT have coupons for, Imperial Sugar was on sale for $2.49. There was a printable for this, but I didn't have it so I paid full price :( The Velveta cheese I needed for our Fourth of July cookout this weekend so it was a NEED. It was on sale, but again, no coupon. It was $3.99.

Before coupons my cost was $48.51. After coupons and after tax my total was $16.45!! YAY! And most of that cost was the sugar and block of cheese that were full price. Everything was FREE or almost FREE! And the even better part, is most of this I can use for our cookout this weekend!



The next store I went to was Walmart.

Now, I know that some of my friends have got some of these items at other stores for cheaper. This was the best that I got, but I'm pretty happy with the deals I got at Walmart. I NEVER get good savings at Walmart!

• Dove Men+Care Body and Face wash was on sale for $3.97. I had a coupon for Buy One Get One FREE up to $5.99. The cashier said that Walmart always gives you the maximum value off. So even though the product was only $3.97, she gave me a discount of $5.99 because the coupon was good for "up-to" that much. Talk about an awesome cashier! I paid a total of $1.95 for 2 body washes! (I'm not holding this as fact because I'm not familiar with Walmarts coupon policy and I have NEVER heard of cashiers doing this before!)
• Dove Men+Care Bar Soap 6pk was on sale for $5.97. I had a $4 off coupon making these $1.97! I had two coupons for these so I got 2 6pcs of soap.
• Gillette Men's ProGlide Razors in the travel section were on sale for $5.97. I'm not sure if this was a "sale" price or if that is the price they are daily. I had 3 $4 off coupons making these only $1.97 each. This was GREAT because Hubby Holmes uses this exact razor. I NEVER find stuff for him that's exactly what he uses. He will be very happy to have these :)

My total before coupons was $37.79. After coupons I only paid $15.01! Ive never saved that much at Walmart, so I was pretty excited about all these great savings! (Yes, I realize that I'm a nerd and I get excited about this lol but seriously, these are great deals people!!) :)


The last and final store that I went to was CVS. If it weren't for the fact that they have shopping carts with cars attached to the front of them that my daughter can get inside and "drive" through the store, then we would have NOT made it through this store lol. Shopping with a toddler is not an easy task and by this point I had her out all day and she had not had a nap, and was hungry, and I'm sure had a pull-up that was about to explode because it needed to be changed lol. So this was a VERY quick trip!

• Pantene Shampoos were on sale for 2/$6.97. I had a coupon for $3 off when you buy 2 making them only $3.97 for 2 PLUS a $2 ECB printed off on my receipt making these only $1.97 for 2!
• Dove Men's Deodorant was on sale for 2/$7. I had a Buy One Get One Free coupon making these only 2/$3.50
• Woman's Degree Deodorant was also on sale for 2/$7. I had 2 Buy one get one free coupons so I got 4 deodorants for only $7.
• However! If you spent $15 on select Degree and Dove products then you get $5 ECBS. Before coupons my deodorant costs were $21 so I earned the $5 ECB's for those.

My total before coupons 39.12! After coupons and after tax I paid $11.07. BUT with my $2 ECB's from the Shampoo and then my $5 ECB that printed from purchasing the deodorants I really only paid $4.07!! That's one of my best CVS trips ever, but then again, I'm new to alot of the CVS shopping.


I had so much fun shopping today! It was so great to get so many things my family can use and not break the bank. Today I spend a total of $42.52 and saved a total of $86.45! I cant wait to see what is on sale next week!

Wedding Recap #2

With all the stress that the day before our wedding brought me, I was NOT about to let the day of our wedding be anything but relaxation, joy, and just filled with love and laughter. Hahahaha, yeah right! That was not what was in store for me that day lol. Well, the love and laughter part ofcorse was! But to think that the day was going to be anything but stress free and full of relaxation was a JOKE! The day started with our wedding rehearsal. We had our rehearsal the morning of our wedding because we had alot of family coming in from out of town and it made it easier for them to not have to miss work/school/etc. on Friday. So bright and early at 8:30 we all headed to the Train Depot to unload 3 cars FULL of wedding crap into the station and try to fit in a wedding rehearsal, breakfast and some set up in only 2 hours that morning. It was rather interesting to say the least! We were so blessed to have so many friends and family there to help us! Everyone found a job and pitched in! I could not have done it without all of them. And not one of them complained about my disorganization and chaotic mind that day lol. Here are some pictures of our family and friends helping out:

My nephew helping out like a stud!

I'm so glad they helped! Look at all the crap they had to carry in, so funny to look back on it now and see how unimportant some of that stuff was! lol

Everyone waiting to be told what to do :)

I feel like this picture is a good representation of the day! Just a pile of stuff everywhere!

This is Debra, our head caterer and wedding planner. The look on her face is priceless! That is exactly how I was feeling this morning lol

Everyone helping set up tables! What great troupers they were :)

"Are you sure you want me to put that there?!"

Apparently I was dishing out orders lol

You gotta leave time for playing on your iPhone :)

By this point others joined in on the "setting up the candy bar" lol. I think they just wanted to sneak some tasty treats ;)

Once we got some things put away and the caterer arrived with breakfast for everyone, the morning started to look up. I know now looking back on everything that the disorganization was a result of all the planning and ideas that I had come up with from a year and a half of planning and thinking I needed every little detail to make our wedding day perfect. But in fact it took away from me being able to enjoy the time with family and friends. I will say, and I'm sure I will mention later, that once I walked down the aisle towards marrying my best friend, all that stress lifted away and I was in complete love and joy! Nothing mattered any more and everything was perfect! Everything just fell into place and I was able to enjoy our wedding evening, with a few surprises too! Everyone enjoyed the rehearsal breakfast and we were able to run through the rehearsal in less than 20 min! After the rehearsal, everyone parted ways to get ready for the big event of the day! Gracie and myself headed to the hotel to enjoy a few moments of quite time before getting my hair done and all the bridesmaids headed off to get their hair done at the salon. Kudos to all the girls at Synergy Salon for making them all look FABULOUS! Thank you to everyone who was there at the rehearsal and helped out. I may not have told you thank you but your help was very much appreciated and we could not have done it without each and every one of you! Hubby Holmes and myself love you all and are very grateful for all you did for us that day :) Stay tuned for a recap of getting ready and the ceremony! :)